please empty your brain below
oh, DG, you have smashed my nostalg-o-meter this morning... the 'wooded territory' was the best stretch for conkering that a child could want circa '76 ...

PJS | 16.02.20 - 7:53 a.m. | #

As a young teen and pre-teen I used to cycle round some of the nearby streets, mapping them in my head and getting them all down on paper when I got home. A few years later Express Motors was my first experience of that novelty, the self-service petrol pump.

Malcolm | 16.02.20 - 9:27 a.m. | #

Not the most pleasant of experiences but thank you for enduring it so we don't have to.
Thinking of waterways as I was lying in bed last night, as you do, I'm now off to Google if there's a difference between a brook and a stream!

Cornish Cockney | 16.02.20 - 10:04 a.m. | #

...bleak, grim and polluted.

Grumpy Anon | 16.02.20 - 11:36 a.m. | #

The explorations of urban watercourses are some of my favourite posts in almost twenty years of following your blog DG - thank you.

Marc | 16.02.20 - 11:50 a.m. | #

Thanks DG - a post about my home territory that I found interesting - never knew the Tesco was built on a disused sewage works. It opened not long after I came to this area so I never knew what had been there before.

Re the Friern Retail park "exit route across a bridge via an entirely unnecessary roundabout", this is quite controversial. There has been for many years a proposal that the land on the south side of the A406 should be used for the North London Waste facility, hence the roundabout infrastructure built to accommodate it. Not sure what was there in the past but I believe it is polluted land that can't be used for housing. But the plan for the waste facility has been campaigned against vigorously for many years - I don't know if they will ever be able to get planning permission for it.

Caz | 16.02.20 - 5:50 p.m. | #

The controversial site opposite the retail park also used to be a sewage works. At present there are no plans to redevelop it (local opposition has indeed been steep), but it remains earmarked for a waste disposal facility.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 16.02.20 - 6:04 p.m. | #

I agree. Rather you than me. Makes me feel lucky though, living alongside a huge park with a fresh food market down the road and relatively few ugly buildings.

Sally Hirst | 20.02.20 - 3:03 a.m. | #











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